Street Photography clichés, no no's and taboos.

LoL I've never read anything Adams had to say about Mortensen but I do know how he felt about pictorial photography. I do think his words are true in that quote whether he followed them or not. Funny how the PPA/camera club/calendar art aesthetic seems to embrace pictorial like imagery.

But back to topic everything today could be called cliche. With more images created in the last 5 years than have been created by all art forms in all of history up until then so everything has been done. Just do it. Don't worry so much if it is this or that or what little pile it fits into. Just try enjoy what you are doing and try to learn to love the journey.
 
I think really good photographers are really bad in speeches. (Like with other fields, too- plenty of great musicians making an a$$ out of themselves at an interview)
They should be taking photos and not talking nonsense. Leave that to politicians.
 
Pherdinand said:
I think really good photographers are really bad in speeches. (Like with other fields, too- plenty of great musicians making an a$$ out of themselves at an interview)
They should be taking photos and not talking nonsense. Leave that to politicians.
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Really, because most of the really good ones I know of know what they are doing and WHY. They have real philosophies and really good understandings of what they are/were doing visually. That understanding of the art form and how they fit into it, for many, helped them in becoming who they are.

So how is someone imposing their rules and sense of morality on others helping street photography?

Also wanted to say that there are not many that shot as much as Winogrand did and had the influence on an art form the way he did yet he found the time to teach and to write about it. You can't shoot 24 hours a day though I think he might have come close. LoL...
 
I try to emulate every 'famous' photographer I've read about.

But, because they did it first thus making me an 'also ran', I leave my lens cap on.

:D
 
airfrogusmc said:
Really, because most of the really good ones I know of know what they are doing and WHY.
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yes, however they talk nonsense and/or they apply double standard (hypocrisy).
See above the Ansel Adams case.

Of course, clever quotes by XY are also often taken out of the context to prove someone's point so it might not always be the photographer's fault if the quote doesn't match the action, or if the quote is dumb.
 
But it still doesn't make his words wrong so I will ask again to get back on topic,
How is someone imposing their rules and sense of morality on others helping street photography?
 
Allen, for one who says they know photographic history, this is one situation where you should educate yourself. It is funny that Mortensen is now getting his due, and Adams and the Newhalls are finally being shown for the historic asses that they really are. There is no denying Adams influence as a teacher, but I find his work to be devoid of emotion. The Newhalls were just wrong in their version of photographic history. Their history, like most, was extremely biased.

http://boingboing.net/2014/10/10/ansel-adams-called-photographe.html

"Even after Mortensen’s death in 1965 from leukemia, Group f/64 and the Newhalls could not stop talking of their loathing for him. Beaumont described his work as “perverse”; Willard Van Dyke, a founder of Group f/64, said “his work was disgusting”; and Adams summed him up with the words, “For us, he was the antichrist.”

Ultimately though, for all the griping of Adams and f/64, it turns out that Mortensen was the true modernist all along, not them. For today, we are surrounded by images of the fantastic and unreal. In comic-book movies such as Spider-Man and Rise of the Planet of the Apes, special effects merge seamlessly into the action and the monsters appear as real as humans. A photograph is rarely just a photograph these days, seen without filters or retouching. And, thanks to sites like Instagram, many of Mortensen’s painstaking techniques can now be applied with the touch of a button."

There is more to be found.

Whether one agrees with the above or not, is not important. Adams, the f/64 group Group, were vindictive, spiteful, in spite of their "good" intentions. And there is no denying what good they did. But there is no denying that in history, in time, set things right.
 
Well, I do know about their hate for pictorial photography which, in my opinion, I believe as they did, that for photography to become legit it had to stop trying to copy other art forms and stand on it's own for what it can do best. Having said that i don't hate pictorial work and some i do like a lot.

I think that digital is still trying to find its voice as film photography did. How many years did it take film to find it's voice? Mixed media has been around for decades and a lot of digital is really pushing established boundaries and will continue to. Who knows where any of this is going? Time will tell. Many of us might not like it though LoL...

Having said all of that I still haven't heard an answer to my question that brings all of this back to topic.
How is someone imposing their rules and sense of morality on others helping street photography?
 
airfrogusmc said:
But it still doesn't make his words wrong so I will ask again to get back on topic,
How is someone imposing their rules and sense of morality on others helping street photography?
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it's not helping. If you read back you can see that i disagree with the "rules" set in the OP.
 
photomoof said:
I only shoot landscapes because I believe it is wrong to shoot any photos of human beings.
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“I think the humanism of the Photo League was amazing, and that’s lost now,” he said. “Contemporary art and the scene have now pushed people where they’re afraid to photograph on the street. They’re afraid to use people, except as objects in an image. That is such a tragedy. People are the most interesting things on earth.”

- George Zimbel
 
Sometimes the intensity of this thread really p's me off.

Would you ever say to an aspiring artist or established artist "This is the way you must paint?"

Have a check at many of the greats in most fields and see what they told the 'men at the front' to go and do.
 
kbg32 said:
“I think the humanism of the Photo League was amazing, and that’s lost now,” he said. “Contemporary art and the scene have now pushed people where they’re afraid to photograph on the street. They’re afraid to use people, except as objects in an image. That is such a tragedy. People are the most interesting things on earth.”

- George Zimbel
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So he wasn't a fan of Bresson'..

It's great that we don't only have one way to do any of this. And through some work that maybe does shows humanity and also creates interesting juxtapositions and can actually tell us a little something about who we are as a society at that moment in time are the images that really take street for lack of a better word to a different level.

And I love landscape but don't have a passion at this point in time to shoot it. Who knows, maybe in 10 years I will get an 8X10 Deardorff and move to New Mexico but for now I have a real passion for what I am doing.
 
alistair.o said:
Sometimes the intensity of this thread really p's me off.

Would you ever say to an aspiring artist or established artist "This is the way you must paint?"

Have a check at many of the greats in most fields and see what they told the 'men at the front' to go and do.
Click to expand...

Agree.......
 
airfrogusmc said:
So he wasn't a fan of Bresson'..

It's great that we don't only have one way to do any of this. And through some work that maybe does shows humanity and also creates interesting juxtapositions and can actually tell us a little something about who we are as a society at that moment in time are the images that really take street for lack of a better word to a different level.

And I love landscape but don't have a passion at this point in time to shoot it. Who knows, maybe in 10 years I will get an 8X10 Deardorff and move to New Mexico but for now I have a real passion for what I am doing.
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Just a reaction to photomoof. I am a big fan of the Photo League, but it does not preclude a lot of likes of many different photographic/art genres.
 
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